Broadway’s “Our Town” Gently Centers Our Soul on What is Important (But Will The Candle Stay Lit?) – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Broadway Theatre Review: Thornton Wilder’s Our Town

By Ross

The piano is played, key by key, simply and charmingly by the town organist, Simon Stimson, played well by Donald Webber Jr. (Off-Broadway’s Whorl Inside a Loop), who’s “seen a peck of trouble” before an overwhelmingly emotional entrance is made all around. With lanterns lit and swaying overhead in a dynamic swirl and also in hand, the chanting is what registers the most in those first few moments of this sweetly conceived revival of Thornton Wilder‘s Our Town, currently centering our soul on Broadway at the Barrymore Theatre. Overlapping with one another to great effect by a cast of excellent pros, “the greatest American play ever written“, as described by Edward Albee, assembles itself on that wide stage like a church choir singing its sermon, piped and delivered for a sincere unpacking to the songs of praise and emotional clarity.

It’s Grovers Corners, New Hampshire, circa 1901, we are told by the expert narrator of this majestic, classic play, and as embodied with a cool flair for connection by Jim Parsons (2ST Broadway’s Mother Play), the staging, as directed by Kenny Leon (Broadway’s Purlie Victorious) finds its footing clearly and solidly within those initial framings. It’s gentle and appealing as Parsons leads us through, pointing out what’s over yonder as well as what is there right before us. He leans into the framing of the whole play, hoping we will take the time to notice the details and the intricacies we all take for granted in our day-to-day lives. We feel his empathetic response to the human predicament, and it fills us with gentle hope. a feeling we could all use a bit more of, I guess.

Revolving around a big imagined butternut tree, a lovely town exists, as does this tenderly felt production helmed by Leon. It walks itself through the iconic paces in three well-defined acts, played out quickly, almost too much so, wrapping up this engagement in less than two hours like “silk off a spool“. Each framing is dutifully described and presented like chapters in a book without props or scenery on an impressive wooden stage designed with clarity by Beowulf Boritt (Broadway’s POTUS), with gentle lighting by Allen Lee Hughes (Broadway’s Ohio State Murders), tenderly felt but muddled costuming by Dede Ayite (2ST Broadway’s Appropriate), and a well-tuned sound design by Justin Ellington (RT Broadway’s Home). There are lots of details within the construct that sometimes jump out, like the cell phone narrator Parsons takes from one character’s hands as he attempts to draw focus to what is at the core of this solidly built play. And there are lots of honest, very folksy sentiments delivered in this production around the ideas of family, love, marriage, and ultimately, but not surprisingly, death.

This is small-town America back in the day, played out on a well-crafted stage by a well-tuned cast during a pivotal election year in modern America, one that is filled with hate and hope clashing up against one another in shockingly intense ways. It’s an election year that sits hard and uncomfortably in our collective hearts, and during this tumultuous time, this play seems almost too quaint for words, and maybe that’s the point. To see what really is at the core of life in a village by people more interested in the beautify of the sun coming up every morning than the love of beauty or culture, as we find out in the question and answer portion of this famed play. And it is delivered in a way that hopefully settles our soul against the darkness of the approaching night.

I must admit I have never really been drawn to this play, nor have I seen it as something powerfully moving or iconic. Maybe it’s too connected to my theatre arts education as the pantomime portions have long been used in acting classes for decades – a class I was submitted to even though I was a set design major. Or maybe this version of America doesn’t seem so honest anymore, especially to this Canadian who has lived in this city for decades, but as this production of this play rolls itself forward, asking us to join with the town of “Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America …. it’s not finished: the United States of America; Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God.” one may have to question what we are really being asked to believe in. And who’s God are we being asked to mind.

The living and dying we see, as we skip a few hours or years forward through life, are portrayed, quite lovingly, by stars of the big and little screens; like Zoey Deutch (“The Politician“) who plays, quite convincingly the young central figure, Emily Webb, Hagan Oliveras (Creede Rep’s Ripcord) as brother Wally who is mothered by Katie Holmes (“Pieces of April“) and fathered by Richard Thomas (“The Unforgivable“). As well as seasoned stage performers in the house next door, led solidly by Billy Eugene Jones (Broadway’s Fat Ham) as Dr. Gibbs, Michelle Wilson (Broadway’s Sweat) as Mrs. Gibbs, and their two children; George and Rebecca, sweetly portrayed by Ephraim Sykes (TNG’s Black No More) and Safiya Kaijya Harris (SITP’s Hamlet).

Mixed in with the town masses, we are also blessed with the genius of Julie Halston (Broadway’s Tootsie) as Mrs. Soames, who just loves a good wedding, and other solidly portrayed townfolk, portrayed with care by Heather Ayers (Broadway’s Groundhog Day), Willa Bost (Broadway’s Purlie Victorious), Bobby Daye (Broadway’s After Midnight), Doron Jépaul (Broadway’s The Piano Lesson) Shyla Lefner (Off-Broadway’s Between Two Knees), Anthony Michael Lopez (Broadway’s Camelot), Bryonha Marie (Broadway’s Prince of Broadway), John McGinty (Broadway’s Children of a Lesser God), Kevyn Morrow (West End’s Ragtime), Noah Pyzik (Broadway’s Purlie Victorious), Ephie Aardema Sarnak (Broadway’s Funny Girl), Sky Smith (59E59’s The Lucky Star), Bill Timoney (Broadway’s Network), Richardo Vázquez (Broadway’s The Inheritance), and Greg Wood (“The Blacklist“).

It’s a large, strongly connected cast digging themselves into the rhythms and routines of small-town Americana, with many doing well in the confines of mime, and others, feeling somewhat vague and lost in the preparations. Deutch is a standout, finding an authentic formation to fit into, as she stares longingly out into the stars from her bedroom window. We can believe in her, luckily, as she is the one who must lead us through the emotional act three where the bacon is cooked just right and the symbolic formula is served up like a hot cup of coffee. It is through her eyes that we are asked to see how life goes far too fast for us to really grasp the importance of the detailing, as well as pay our respects to the love and care put into a breakfast meal or a birthday gift.

Yet, it’s also Parsons who must lead Emily and us throughout, and he does it with theatrical charm enough. And keep it moving he does, propelling us towards the graveyard scene with gentle force. I enjoyed his asides and awkward engagements, giving us a companion we don’t mind being with, but is somewhat forgettable the moment we leave his company. That may, once again, be the point of his stage management, guiding but not invading, much like the gentle good-natured Paul Newman who played the part on Broadway in 2003, as well as David Cromer, who both directed and played the part in his 2009 off-Broadway production.

That production, now that I speak about it, stayed in my mind long after we left the Barrow Street Theatre. And for good reason. It was revolutionary in its depiction of the final scene of Act Three. He created a framing that I couldn’t get out of my head as I watched Leon’s production, especially when the veil was lifted and the dead were revealed. Leon tries to bring a little of that realm into his Broadway revival of Our Town with the blown-in smell of bacon, but it doesn’t really craft the same magic. Wilder might not have approved of Cromer’s reframing, I must add, as he was very intentional about his blank spaces and the lack of scenery.

In the  “Preface to Three Plays...” he commented that “the method of staging finds its justification–in the first two acts there are at least a few chairs and tables; but when Emily revisits the earth and the kitchen to which she descended on her twelfth birthday, the very chairs and table are gone. Our claim, our hope, our despair is in the mind–not in things, not in “scenery”. Moliere said that for the theater all he needed was a platform and a passion or two. The climax of this play needs only five square feet of boarding and the passion to know what life means to us.” In Cromer’s recreation, we are knocked over by the meaning and life, but not so much here in this current revival. “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?” asks Emily. No, not really, I’m sad to report, as this Broadway revival of Our Town gently taps us on our shoulders about the whole point of the play. It hopes that we take the idea home with us, but more likely, because of its sweet simplistic unpacking, we probably won’t, ultimately leaving it on the floor of the Barrymore Theatre alongside many of the discarded programs we step over on our way out into the storm of modern-day America.